I was born with a reading list i will never finish – Maud Casey

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Still Waters by Judith Cutler

Detective Chief Superintendent Fran Harman takes charge of the inquiry into the mysterious death of Alec Minton, whose body is found beneath his hotel window, but something doesn’t add up. If he jumped to his death, would he really have had a cup of tea just moments before? And if he was pushed out of the window, where are the signs of forced entry to his room? Harman must discover the truth even through her new boss seems determined to undermine her at every turn.

Still Waters follows DCS Fran Harman, as she investigates both a suicide that doesn’t make sense and a three year old murder case that’s up for review, the body having never been found and the two men sent to prison for the crime being possibly innocent all along. However her new boss, DCC Simon Gates has another agenda for her including possible retirement unless she does as he wants.

Still Waters was a steady paced, light crime novel that kept your interest yet was still nice and gentle.

Fran is extremely likeable as are many of the other characters however there are some extremely unlikeable characters as well that made my blood boil. It also annoyed me how weak Mark was went it came to his daughter.

The plot wasn’t predictable per se however I had a feeling where it was all headed. There were a few surprises throughout that I didn’t see coming and I soon realised that even some of the most trivial details were in fact essential parts to the plot.

The only major gripe I have with the book is that I felt that not a lot was actually resolved in the end. I get the very end scene however I’m more talking about the crimes that Fran was trying to solve. They weren’t really wrapped up and even though I understand some questions can’t be answered, it would have been nice to have the ones that could.

Overall the book was a light, enjoyable read that I would recommend to those like a steady paced mystery/crime fiction.